Fallon felt the blood drain from her head. Her hand froze on the doorknob. Turn around, she told herself, turn around and face her.
“Men are funny,” Carla purred. “Always worried we’ll share their little idiosyncrasies. Not that we would, darling. After all, we both know what a fantastic lover Stefano is—though I must admit, I have wondered if he plays the same little games with you as he did with me. Taking your hands, for example. Putting them—”
“Stop it!” Fallon whirled toward the other woman. “Just stop it right now.”
“Why? It’s the twenty-first century, Fallon. Women are free to talk about sex if they…” She paused, and a knowing smile curved her mouth. “Oh, my,” she said softly. “You didn’t know. Stefano didn’t tell you. Here you are, working as my little gopher, and you had no idea I knew your lover as well as you do. Better, probably, considering all the months he and I were together.”
Fallon stared at that cold, lovely face, the hateful smile and the venom-filled eyes. She told herself she was being ridiculous. Stefano wasn’t a monk. Of course there’d been women in his life. There’d been men in hers. What did it matter?
Except it did matter. He should have told her. Instead, he’d snapped and snarled and told her lies.
Hadn’t it occurred to him that if she found out about Carla—when she found out—it would be humiliating to hear the news from anyone but him?
“Do sit down,” Carla said pleasantly, “before you pass out.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Well, you’re white as a sheet. Sit down, darling.” Carla laughed. “I know getting coffee is your job, but I’ll pour you a cup, if you need it.”
Fallon sank into the chair. “I’m fine.”
“He really didn’t tell you?”
Fallon shook her head. “No.”
“Ah.” Carla folded her arms and leaned back. “Well, I suppose we can hardly blame him. I mean, it all happened so quickly, me ending our relationship, him getting involved with you…”
“You ended it?”
“Oh, of course. And Stefano was furious. Well, we’d been together six months. I suppose he assumed…Anyway, women don’t walk out on men like him. That’s what he thinks, anyway.” Carla’s voice turned syrup-sweet. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“I don’t care one way or the other,” Fallon said, lying through her teeth.
“Well, anyway, it’s all water under the bridge.” Carla sighed. “ knew he was liable to do something crazy. I mean, when I told him we were finished, he was so upset…Oh, darling. I don’t meant to imply that taking up with you was crazy, just that, well, there he was, being vindictive, saying he wouldn’t let me use the inside of his castle because I’d hurt him, then phoning me the second day of the shoot to say he was going to find a way to make me change my mind about walking out on him…”
Carla kept talking but Fallon had stopped listening. The phone call. The second day of the shoot. Carla, white-faced, turning to stare at the castello, then offering a sorry excuse and rushing back to New York.
It made terrible sense.
Stefano had taken up with her on the rebound. And he’d taken her to the same bed Carla had slept in.
Fallon lurched to her feet. “I’m sorry, Carla, but I have to leave early.”
“I’ve upset you.”
Bitch! That was the whole purpose of the conversation. Did Carla think she’d been born yesterday?
“No,” Fallon said, and forced a quick smile, “you haven’t.” She dug deep and managed to turn the smile into a just-between-us grin. “Men are impossible. Why Stefano would think it would bother me if he told me that you and he had—that you’d been involved, is beyond me.”
“You’re right,” Carla said blandly. She hesitated, then leaned forward. “Darling? Do you want the name of that surgeon I mentioned? I mean, I’m sure your face isn’t a problem for you but, well, knowing Stefano…”
“Yes?” Fallon said coldly. “Knowing him, what?”
“Nothing. It’s just that he’s such a perfectionist.”
“My face isn’t a problem for him,” Fallon said, even more coldly. “If that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“Perhaps not directly but, um, people talk. Well, no matter. Stefano’s shown you such enormous compassion…”
“He has, yes.” Fallon stared at the other woman, knowing that the best way to strike at her was to go for the jugular. “Perhaps that’s why he never mentioned his relationship with you to me, Carla. I don’t think it left much of an impression on him.”
She made her exit on that note. It was pathetic, the saddest excuse for victory in the world, but it was all she could manage.
Swiftly, Fallon collected her suit jacket, her purse and headed for the street. Stefano had said he’d be back by early evening. And that they had to talk. Good. She wanted to talk, too.
About relationships.
About integrity.
Fallon stepped off the curb, ignored the traffic whizzing past her toes and, in the time-honored way New Yorkers hailed cabs, lifted her hand. A taxi swung out of traffic, horns blared, and the vehicle stopped beside her.
She climbed in, gave the driver Stefano’s address, then tapped her foot all the way there.
* * *
Stefano unlocked the front door, dumped his keys and his briefcase on the table.
He called out his housekeeper’s name, then remembered it was her day off.
Just as well.
He’d gotten back to the city earlier than expected and really didn’t feel like bothering with anyone right now, not even his housekeeper.
What he wanted was to strip off his clothes, take a long, cold shower, put on shorts and a T-shirt, mix a pitcher of Margaritas—Fallon liked Margaritas, he thought, smiling—and put it in the refrigerator to chill while he did some serious thinking before she got home.
Stefano dropped his clothes on a chair in the dressing room.
He’d better do some serious thinking. He’d already made a couple of really bad errors. First and most important, he should have already told Fallon that he loved her. He was as sure as a man dared be that she loved him, too.
If there was any danger in telling her how he felt, he’d be damned if he could see it anymore.
Stefano turned on the shower, stepped inside and let the side and overhead sprays pelt his knotted muscles. He was tired; he hadn’t slept much last night, lying in bed thinking about how life could turn things upside down.
How the woman you wanted to spend the rest of your life with could end up working for a woman you never wanted to see again.
Hell.
That had been his second mistake. He should have taken a deep breath, looked Fallon straight in the eye last night and said, I don’t want you working for Carla because I had an affair with her.
Instead, he’d chickened out. Said nothing. Done nothing. Breathed a sigh of relief that Carla hadn’t been the vindictive bitch he’d have figured her for, and kept his mouth shut because he hadn’t been able to think of a way to tell Fallon the truth.
He’d had an affair with Carla and ended it because it was time for it to end. Carla hadn’t meant a damned thing to him except, at the end, trouble.
Stefano turned the water off and reached for a towel.
Well, he wasn’t going to screw up anymore. As soon as Fallon came through the door, he’d sit her down and tell her everything, starting with the fact that he loved her.
He smiled and wrapped the towel low on his hips, but his smile faded as he thought of the third thing he had to tell Fallon.
It was the reason he’d flown to Boston.
He had a college buddy there, a guy who’d become a physician and headed up a department of one of the country’s most prestigious hospitals. Jeff was a cardio-thoracic surgeon. He literally held people’s hearts in his hand. He was the best, and Stefano had figured he’d know only the best.
If Fallon wanted restorative surgery on
her scars, only the best would do.
“How bad are the scars?” Jeff had asked him.
“Not bad enough for her to go under the knife,” he’d answered, and Jeff’s eyebrows had risen.
“So it’s like that, huh?”
“Like what?”
Jeff had grinned. “Like you finally found the right woman.”
Stefano hadn’t bothered denying it. “Yes. Damned right I did, and why she wants this surgery is beyond me.”
“Does she want it for herself?” Jeff said.
It had been Stefano’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “Of course. Who else would she want it for?”
Jeff shrugged. “You, maybe. I mean, if she thinks—”
“I love her just as she is. She knows that. Look, she was a model. I thought she’d gotten past looking in the mirror and only seeing those scars, but I was wrong.”
“Yeah, that happens. Okay, my man. I’ll give you the names of two guys in New York.”
“The best?”
Jeff grinned. “The absolute best. As long as the lady wants this for herself—”
“Of course, I’m going to try and talk her out of it.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Sure I will. She caught me off guard, bringing the subject up last night, but I’m certainly not going to let her undergo surgery if…What?”
“Listen, I understand. You love the lady. You want to take care of her. But this is her face, Stefano, her life and her choice. Be there with her when she goes to see these men, discuss the pros and cons with her if she wants, maybe offer your opinion on which guy to go with if she asks, but don’t try talking her into, or out of, anything.”